The general turned. “Dr. Smith, please remove the needle for the time being.”
With a faint look of disappointment, the doctor extracted the needle from the IV injection port and stepped back. Gladstone felt a flood of relief. Her senses were heightened in the extreme; she could hear the storm faintly, still raging outside, along with the whisper of the HVAC and the ticking of a clock somewhere. The IV in her arm throbbed. There were no windows in the lab, only a long, horizontal mirror high along one wall.
“The idea behind MK-Ultra,” the general continued, “was to seek ways to manipulate an individual’s mental state — mind control, if you will — using drugs and behavior modification techniques. It was primarily meant as a battlefield weapon, employed to confuse or disable an enemy, or as a tool for interrogation. It was launched in 1953 and officially shut down in 1973, after some lily-livered government bureaucrats got cold feet.” He shook his head with a mixture of dismay and disgust.
Alves-Vettoretto spoke up. “General, I’m stating for the record that you should not be engaging with this man, in particular by providing him information.”
“Oh, come now. He made a reasonable request. Perhaps he will cooperate.”
“He’ll never cooperate.”
“We shall see. Now, where was I? Most of MK-Ultra involved the testing of various psychoactive drugs. We were seeking compounds that would cause mental confusion, lower a person’s efficiency, make them sick or drunk, induce amnesia, paralysis, and so forth. In short, to incapacitate them. One branch of the division also focused on potentially positive drugs, ones that would enhance thinking, clarity, or physical strength, or reduce the need for sleep without negative side effects.”
He stood up and walked slowly around the lab.
“Some of us devoted our lives to this project. It was run by the CIA, but it had a military component as well. I was part of that latter section. We provided the manpower and facilities necessary to do the testing, as well as the subjects. When the CIA shut it down, several of us from the military component were devastated. We knew other countries had similar and very active programs of their own. It was insane for the United States to unilaterally disarm — especially since we were chasing a potential breakthrough. I was a young officer then, and a group of us resolved to keep it going. We resigned our commissions. But we had friends, many friends, who felt as we did, so we were able to secure black funding channeled to us through military purchasing. That funding allowed us to acquire, transform, and disguise the nature of this facility.”
He turned toward the doctor. “Dr. Smith was instrumental in the development of the breakthrough drug. Doctor, would you care to take over?”
“Delighted,” said the doctor, stepping forward with a grin. He removed his glasses and gave them a careful polishing with a white handkerchief tugged from his pocket. His bright, greenish-amber eyes flickered about the room, passing over Gladstone as if she didn’t exist.
“By 1973, the group had identified a class of powerful psychoactive drugs derived from a genus of parasites called Toxoplasma. These compounds were already known to have peculiar effects on the brain. Extremely peculiar effects. Of course, this was before my time.” He poked the handkerchief back into his pocket and perched the glasses on his nose once again, adjusting the frames behind each ear with a finicky gesture. “The pharmaceutical biologists on the team struggled to understand the mechanism. They had almost given up when I joined, back in ’89.”
He gave a little chuckle. “The parasite in question is not uncommon: Toxoplasma gondii, which causes a disease in humans known as toxoplasmosis. The illness is usually mild, with flulike symptoms, and it’s common in households that have cats, which are widespread carriers. We were interested in this parasite because it appeared to have the power to alter mammal behavior. Mice infected with toxoplasmosis not only lose their fear of cats, but actually seek out cats — and subsequently get killed and eaten. This is how the parasite reproduces and spreads among cats — by altering the mouse’s behavior. In addition, studies showed that people infected with toxoplasmosis also experience altered behavior. It causes, for example, ‘crazy cat-lady syndrome.’ It can also trigger bizarre risk-taking and even schizophrenia.”
He chuckled again and inhaled with a long noisy sniff. “Consider that. A single-celled parasite with no mind of its own, no brain or nervous system, is able to take over the mind of a mouse — or a human — and control its behavior. Truly remarkable!”
Another strange inhaling sound as he gathered more air to continue speaking. His voice was high, loud, and pedantic; the voice of the lecture hall.
“How does it do this? That was the question!” He raised a tiny finger. “When I arrived, I redirected the research program and we were soon able to discover a suite of complex neurotropic compounds released by the parasite. These compounds attached to certain lipoproteins in the brain and altered the firing of specific neurons. This in turn caused a range of bizarre human behaviors, mostly in the obsessive-compulsive realm. Endless handwashing, for example, or hoarding, or the sudden appearance of phobias. It even triggered, in some subjects, a compulsive nibbling or eating of the body, or violent sexual behaviors. Heady days indeed!”
His voice had climbed in pitch and excitement until it was almost squeaking. He halted and took another long, snuffling breath.
“One exploration of these compounds produced an especially strange reaction. It triggered a bizarre psychiatric condition known as body integrity identity disorder, or BIID. We called this drug H12K, after the batch number of its production.”
The general spoke. “Mr. Pendergast, are you familiar with BIID?”
“No.”
“I’m not surprised, since it has yet to receive diagnostic criteria in psychiatric circles. It’s an extremely rare and perplexing psychological condition — so strange as to be scarcely believable. I’ll never forget the first time I saw a test subject in the grips of it. At first we didn’t know what was happening to him. He claimed that his left leg, from the knee down, was foreign. An alien thing, is what he called it. He loudly exclaimed to all within hearing that it was evil and had to be removed. This despite the fact that the limb was normal and apparently healthy. For days he was tormented by this hideous attachment, literally begging for help. We didn’t understand at first how this was going to work out — until we found him later in his cell, bleeding copiously. He had sharpened a piece of metal he’d unscrewed from his bedframe and had tried to hack off his own leg.”
A long sniff of triumph and another chuckle from the doctor. “And that was when I understood this drug was special — truly special!”
The chuckle, Gladstone realized, was a nervous tic, not an actual laugh. The sound of it made her blood run cold.
“Here is the most amazing part,” the doctor continued. “Amputation is, in fact, the only cure for BIID. Nothing else works. There are doctors out there who quietly perform these amputations — and psychiatrists who sanction them. The feeling of bodily alienation is so strong, the individuals who get the amputations are relieved, even ecstatic, that the limb is gone. They are cured completely.”
“How interesting,” said Pendergast. The agent’s voice was so calm, so neutral, that Gladstone wondered what he was thinking.
“Interesting indeed!” the doctor said excitedly, his voice high and piercing. “We refined H12K to make it faster acting and more powerful. Best of all — it can be aerosolized!”